1 Million T-Mobile G1 Phone Sold in the US

I’ve read a couple of items wondering if the Google Android platform is a failure since the only widely available Android device so far six months after the T-Mobile G1 launched is the G1 itself. Then, I read this item in Telephony Online…

T-Mobile: 1 million Android phones sold

Note that the million phones mentioned are just T-Mobile USA sales. Now, a million phones isn’t much compared to the multi-millions of iPhones, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile smartphones, and Nokia smartphones sold in the U.S. But, considering the blocking factors the G1 faced, that is a pretty healthy number. What blocking factors you ask?

- T-Mobile is the smallest of the big four mobile phone carriers in the U.S.
- It had practically no 3G data footprint to speak of when the G1 launched in October 2008. And, the G1 was only available in T-Mobile retails stores in 3G areas at first.
- Google Android 1.0, in my opinion, felt half-baked on the G1
- The G1 does not have an attractive design
- The G1 had (still has) horrible battery life
- The G1 memory management (or lack thereof) limits the number of apps that can be installed to a very small number compared to other smartphones

I hope we’ll see a lot more Android phones emerge this year. And, perhaps Android 1.5 deals with some of the 1.0 related issues that bothered me during my short G1 ownership period.

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